


The Formalities of Falling in Love

by aesterismo



Category: Persona 3
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-12-19
Updated: 2012-12-19
Packaged: 2017-11-21 15:23:30
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 922
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/599303
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/aesterismo/pseuds/aesterismo
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Three formalities to falling in love, according to Mitsuru, are as follows: love is certain, love is found in differences rather than similarities, and love will always come back to you - sooner or later.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Formalities of Falling in Love

_  
un。_

  
If anyone asks, Mitsuru never believed in schoolgirl crushes.

Certainly, if you asked her to recount the story of her first love, she would tell you about the boy who sat in front of her at prep school and chewed bubblegum lecture after lecture.

She would tell you she was fascinated with him.

There were many reasons why: the way his hair was unkempt as could be yet his mannerisms were nothing short of complacent and refined, the way his sweet tooth was only matched by his love for soccer, the way he simply _was_ , wild and free and perfectly content with himself.

The sort of person Mitsuru wished she could be.

That was why she fell in love with the boy who, unnoticed and unnamed, was her first love.

She could count the number of people who fascinated her on one hand. 

There were people like Yukari, whose inner strength and resilience to hardship were as admirable as any warrior the history books could name.  People like Minato and Shinjiro, whose actions spoke louder than words and who would be remembered for the people they touched in the too-short time during which they lived. 

People like her beloved SEES members, who were just as much a family to her as anyone with blood ties.

But if you asked her if she was in love now, the answer would be a firm and resounding no.  Not like when she was young.

Not at all.

 

  
_deux。_

  
If someone could look into the deepest corner of Mitsuru’s heart, they would find it reserved for a boy named Akihiko.

Yes, a boy. 

Though they were a few months apart in age, Akihiko reminded her in some ways of the heroes in storybooks - the kind who were courageous to a fault and forever young, the kind who lived to explore and travel and _live_. 

Akihiko was like that before Shinjiro’s death, before Minato’s death, and she knew that he longed to see the world with his own eyes for as long as they had known each other.

So of course, she let him go.

—Correction, she encouraged him and financed his first trip overseas.  It would do him good (it would do them both good, Mitsuru mused as she parted ways with him at the airport terminal gates, to keep some distance) and it wasn’t as if he had any reason to stay in Japan forever.

The wanderlust ran deep in his veins, through his bones and down to his core; meeting new people, experiencing cultures he had only read about.  Mitsuru had been to several countries outside the island, but not Akihiko. 

He deserved the opportunity more than anyone else she knew.

Strange.  She didn’t feel the least bit melancholic as she had her limo take him to the airport, didn’t feel the least bit regretful when he flashed a brilliant smile after she told him to take care of his health. 

She laughed with him while they exchanged light banter over their parenthood roles during their times with SEES, but it was puzzling how much less like a mother she felt while watching his back retreat past the boarding gate, joining the huddled sea of others also on their way to the Americas.

It was so unusual for her to feel the anxious salt-twinge behind eyes staring out into the emptying terminal where Akihiko once stood back to send one last wave in her direction, to feel an emptiness in her heart that rivaled the kind felt when they lowered her father’s coffin into the ground.

Strange, but she didn’t feel like she had fallen in love at that moment at all. 

And that was when it hit her.

By the time you realize you’re in love, it’s time to let that person go.

 

  
_trois。_

  
So she counted her blessings, held her head high - kept up the good Kirijo name and, for all intensive purposes, went on with her life for the next few years they were apart.

When the day came, she was almost late.

The irony of it elicited a shake of the head as she stood at the arrival gates and waited, but Mitsuru’s mind was filled with too many thoughts to concentrate on anything else.  The moment that would prove whether her theories on love were true or not was finally here.

 

  
 _un, deux, trois_. 

  
When she finished counting with her eyes closed for the umpteenth time, she opened them to see Akihiko walking toward her and made him drop his bag in surprise when she pulled him into a hesitant embrace.

He didn’t pull away.

Instead, he buried his nose in the crown of her hair and laughed, picking her up to twirl her about several times and putting on quite a show for several families with fond smiles as they stopped to watch. 

The two of them were quite a sight, Mitsuru tracing gloved hands over new and old scars on his face (older yet still so young, as the fire in his eyes had yet to extinguish; she hoped it never would) and Akihiko running curious fingers through her shoulder length hair, but they didn’t care for reputation any longer, not like they did when they were teenagers.

They were older and wiser now, matured by circumstance - and if the old adage about letting go to see if love came back was indeed a universal truth, then Mitsuru had nothing left to fear in falling headfirst and walking forward into another chapter in both their lives.

 


End file.
